Denver Nuggets / NBA

Hochman: Chauncey Billups is back, much to joy of NBA

The Los Angeles Clippers' Chauncey Billups is back from a devastating injury to his Achilles tendon. (Rick Loomis, Los Angeles Times)

There aren't any fancy stats for integrity. No integrity efficiency rating or integrity per 100 possessions. It's not necessarily calculable; if anything, it's sort of like a binary — you've either got it or you don't.

Chauncey's got it. He is respected and revered by peers, a perpetual point guard, an eternal captain. And these past 10 months, our town's Chauncey Billups put the grit in integrity, persevering from a torn Achilles to make his return to the NBA this past week. It was a cool moment, one that made me proud of the guy, one that should make The 303 proud that he's Denver's guy. Billups is 36. The devastation of the Feb. 6 injury could have just ended his career — he was forced to miss a playoff run with the Clippers and miss his chance to win Olympic gold. But he's back, playing for the fascinating Clippers, who are above .500 and a fascinatingly deep, veteran team.

To know how much players adore Chauncey, one could look back to his days in Detroit, when he won the NBA Finals MVP and said they should cut up the trophy into pieces and pass them out to the rest of the team (naturally, it would have been Billups doing the passing). Or the lone season in the Carmelo era that the Nuggets advanced past the first round, when Chauncey seemingly made everyone around him better, from Melo to the team masseuse. But to know how much players adore this guy, I say look no further than to one of basketball's best players, Chris Paul, the Clippers point guard who nearly cried when the injury happened, who continually gushes about the importance of Billups' aura, and who basically begs to be on the court with him at the same time.

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In other words, Billups even makes the best better.

"You already have a Hall of Fame point guard out there with you, and now you have two of them," Clippers teammate Caron Butler told ESPNLA.com. "That's just special. They can direct traffic and get guys in position and take the pressure off a lot of people. That's what he brings. You have two coaches on the floor, plus a coach on the sideline. That's the type of comfort level you go out there with."

The Denver Post's Benjamin Hochman posts analysis, notes and more on this blog focussing on the Denver Nuggets.

When I brought up Billups' return to George Karl, the Nuggets coach flashed a genuine smile. He's proud of the guy. Karl spoke about "the culture of winning" that Billups brings, and proclaimed that "He's a Hall of Fame player, and I would say he's a first ballot Hall of Famer." And while Billups is still on a minute limit with Los Angeles, Karl is well-aware of the national TV Christmas game at the Clippers.

"I'm sure he'll be ready for that game," Karl said.

Andre Iguodala is the closest thing the Nuggets now have to Chauncey — a veteran, cerebral player who isn't a stat-sheet stuffer or a highlight hog, but a steady stalwart who wins games different ways.

Some don't remember this, but Iguodala and Billups were teammates once, back in the 2010 world championships.

"He's just a great leader, more than anything," Iguodala said. "We were at practice, and it was probably the first time in a long time that a guy really got after me. I had missed an assignment, and he was livid about it. 'You got to get there!' He was just going off. It was one of those things where you have so much respect for a guy, that you're like, 'I got you' — and I got it done. Whereas if it would have been a different guy, we would have argued back and forth about who was right, who was wrong. With him it was like — he's got a ring, so much success in this league, he's got to be right. And that's the type of respect he gets from all the guys."

The former Nuggets star became the first Knicks player to have 20 or more points in 14 of his first 15 games since Patrick Ewing in 1989. Not bad company for Melo, who has been instrumental to the Knicks' early-season success. Entering the weekend, New York was undefeated at home.

Nuggets coach George Karl was recently asked about Anthony, who one could argue is in the MVP race, as of now.

"Melo heard enough from me over the years that I like triple-double guys," Karl said. "I like guys who try to win the game by playing every part of the game, and I think that's what Andre Iguodala (tries to do). I always felt that if you told Melo to average 10 rebounds per game, he'd average 10 rebounds. If you told Melo to be in the top 10 in assists, he could be in the top 10 in assists. But he just wants to score — and he's a top 3-4 scorer in the game of basketball, maybe a top 10 scorer ever. So how you balance out a personality of how a player can play is something that the coach can have an influence on, but a player has to make a commitment to."

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